DIY Photography

Your one stop shop for everything photo-video

  • News
  • Inspiration
  • Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • DIY
  • Gear
Search

Submit A Story

Drone pilot “amazed” to land on deck of Britain’s largest warship without being noticed

Aug 15, 2017 by John Aldred 12 Comments

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this one. The HMS Queen Elizabeth (Ro8) is the Royal Navy’s largest warship. It’s brand new. It cost £3 billion ($3.9 billion) to build. It was only officially named last month, and it’s not even been formally commissioned yet.

The HMS Queen Elizabeth began sea trials on June 26th. During a recent visit to Scotland as part of this tour, a gentleman who is not being named managed to land his drone on it. And he did it completely unnoticed.

The unnamed pilot told The Telegraph…

I was amazed that I was able to land on the aircraft carrier for two reasons, the first being that there was no one about to prevent it from landing although were security police around in small boats who were waving at the drone.

The second reason was more technical. I received a high wind warning as I was videoing up and down the flight deck and my control system advised me to land.

Yeah, I’m pretty amazed, too. I mean, I know it’s not actually out doing its day job yet. And, yes, there’s a website that lets you track her every move. But, still… no security whatsoever? No systems up and running to detect this kind of thing on the ship?

He was not only amazed, but concerned. When he attempted to raise the security issue with local port security, they didn’t seem too bothered. They forwarded him to some heavily armed police he believes were from the Ministry of Defence. He was told that the ship’s crew were all “at dinner ashore”. The officer he spoke to said he would pass it up the chain of command.

It appears he did post images from the flight deck online and was met with some rather harsh criticism. The pilot says that the only law he felt he may be breaking would be flying over the vessel without permission. But other charges may come from the Navy in the future. The images no longer appear to be available.

This was just a harmless drone pilot trying to get some video, and was forced to land due to DJI’s software telling him to. But given some of the things that have been happening with drones recently, it’s pretty scary he was able to land right on the deck with no challenge.

Well, at least he may have the honour of being the first to land a craft on the new ship. Hopefully security will be stepped up a little once she’s in full service.

[via The Telegraph]

Top Image : MoD [45162752] Licensed under OGL v1.0

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Related posts:

The Olympic tennis court is a giant green screen and the Internet has noticed What’s An Officer To Do? BBC Photographer Arrested While Operating Drone Mid-Flight; Police Land Drone Themselves Have you ever noticed the Purkinje Shift? These are the winning photos from the 2018 Nikon Small World competition, prepare to be amazed

Filed Under: news Tagged With: drone

John Aldred: from diyphotography.net

About John Aldred

John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

« Macphun launches Aurora HDR 2018, finally coming to Windows
21 UV & protection filters are put to the test and the results are rather surprising »

Submit A Story

Get our FREE Lighting Book

DIYP lighting book cover

* download requires newsletter signup

Recent Comments

Free Resources

Advanced lighting book

Learn photography

Recent Posts

  • Samyang adds 100mm T2.3 to its compact autofocus cine prime lineup
  • Build your own DIY night vision camera with a Raspberry Pi
  • This adorable LEGO retro camera set hits the stores soon
  • Here are the cameras that shot Flickr’s best images
  • Meta AI image generator Imagine gets its own website

Udi Tirosh: from diyphotography.netUdi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

Alex Baker: from diyphotography.netAlex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

David Williams: from diyphotography.netDave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred: from diyphotography.netJohn Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

Dunja Djudjic: from diyphotography.netDunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

Copyright © DIYPhotography 2006 - 2023 | About | Contact | Advertise | Write for DIYP | Full Disclosure | Privacy Policy